I had a high school history teacher who told us that history was a story, and another who told us that history was people. I would like to believe the latter. Visiting the Armoury Chamber, the Kremlin’s national history museum, I was mesmerized by those objects (robes, slippers, mirrors, thrones, carriages, … ) that had been belonged to the tsars and tsarinas. There’s a pair of black leather over-the-knees boots worn by Peter the Great when he was supervising the construction of St. Petersburg, whose size (they nearly reached my hips) gives a sense of how Great he really was. They’re punkish, with chunky heels and a soft patina, covered with a film of St. Petersburg muck. And they’re both identical, because, apparently, while the Russians had the ability to dredge the canals of St. Petersburg, they didn’t have the ability to design left and right shoes.
Most enchanting were the objects of the young tsars. There’s a sleigh carriage used by Peter’s son Alexey, whose small size (it is also hip-high) gives it a toy-like grace. It’s windows are sealed with micah rather than glass, which must have given the boy a strange, softened view of the world outside. Because of uncertainties in succession the Russians sometimes crowned boys tsars and, at least once, in 1682, two at the same time. That was when Peter (he was ten) was crowned alongside his less robust brother Ivan (he was fifteen). Inside the museum there’s the lovely twin throne they shared at the coronation. And there are the crowns they wore: the traditional Crown of Monomakh (above) for Ivan and, for Peter, a smaller, fancier replica. They’re dreamy. To see them is to feel, whatever one’s political inclinations, like a royalist.